


Snapshots

by fadeverb



Series: Leo [15]
Category: In Nomine
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-03
Updated: 2013-08-03
Packaged: 2017-12-22 07:40:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/910629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fadeverb/pseuds/fadeverb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Slice of life. What Leo does when he's not having a grand adventure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snapshots

**Author's Note:**

> This was a drabble series that I did for the challenge of working to that form. I've kept most of the original breaks between drabbles, but editing means they're not locked to 100 words per anymore.

I answer Zhune's phone, flipping through the contents of the file cabinet with my other hand. "What?"

"Let me talk to Zhune." The Captain who's been annoying us lately, with some job he wants out of us. We'll have to deal with it eventually.

"He's busy." I find the file I want, and poof it goes into shreds of paper. That never gets old. "Can I take a message?"

"Busy doing what?"

I check over the desk I've been hiding behind. "Trying to incapacitate a Malakite without killing him."

"Fine," says the Captain. "Take a message."

I thought so.

#

Zhune considers the body on the floor. "Think I should kill him?"

"Are we sure he's not a Malakite?"

"Mostly sure."

"But not entirely sure?"

Zhune shrugs. "Not entirely sure."

"Then let him live." I hand him the stack of folders we want to keep. "Captain called while you were busy."

"You took a message?"

"I'm not your secretary."

"Never said you were."

"Just because I take messages for you, do the paperwork, and wear the female vessel doesn't mean--"

"It's cute."

"Still not your secretary."

He smirks at me. "Bond girl?"

"I'm willing to negotiate."

#

I make Zhune pull over and give me the keys after he takes off a car's mirror. "No disturbance, idiot. The Game's in town."

"You're no fun." Zhune flips through the files once he's in the passenger seat. "We should call the Captain back and take the job. I don't know what you have against him."

"He's a Calabite."

"So are you."

I slow for a yellow light. "Like that means I should like them? Half of them haven't figured out that showers are not an optional part of vessel maintenance."

"You have a point."

"Don't I always?"

"Almost."

#

It takes the usual amount of beer to get me to agree to the job. Zhune calls the Captain back while I drive us to a motel. Even half drunk, I'm better at not hitting things than he is.

By the time _The Daily Show_ 's over I've gone from half-drunk to all-drunk, and Zhune's trying to take my pants off. "It's the Bond thing," he tells me. "I'm supposed to get the cute female sidekick into bed."

"Don't the Bond girls always die?"

"Not all of them," he says. I haven't read the books, so it's excuse enough for tonight.

#

I hate it when we get a job without the relevant details. "That," says Zhune, "is a lot of blood."

Neither of us wants to go further down in the cellar. "About ankle-deep," I say. "Have I mentioned how much I dislike Samingans?"

"Not today." Zhune pulls out a quarter. "Only one of us has to cross the room to open the safe. Call it."

"Heads," I say, as the coin spins in mid-air, slaps back down.

It's just as well that I was planning on replacing that pair of jeans soon.

#

I'd guess that the demon hasn't bathed in over a month, though it's hard to tell with Calabim. His sneer dropped the instant we handed him the artifact, and now he's damn near cuddling the knife. If he starts singing it lullabies, I'm out of here.

"Good work," says the Captain. "My secretary has your cut."

"What does it do?" By now I'm curious.

"Nothing important," he snaps, and then turns to hum to the knife. It sounds like a lullaby. 

I don't know where Theft finds these people. If this is what a promotion gets you, I'll skip it.

#

"It lets you kill humans without disturbance," Zhune says, back at the car.

"So does any good corporeal artifact. Or my resonance." I'm not impressed. "What was his problem?"

"It's addictive. Use it once, crave using it again. If he doesn't kick the habit he'll get demoted. In the meantime, we get paid."

"How very One Ring."

"One what?"

"Don't you read anything?"

"Ian Fleming."

"Philistine."

"But a good-looking one." Zhune smiles. "Job's done. A few beers to celebrate?"

I know what he means by that. It doesn't even bother me anymore. "Sure. We can afford it."

#

"I hate the beach."

Zhune doesn't look up from his lounging. I don't know how he acquired a fruity drink with an umbrella from this lousy safehouse, but acquire one he did. "Try to relax."

"The sun's too bright, the air's too salty, and sand gets everywhere. I'm going to take a shower."

He tilts back his sunglasses to smile at me with blue-eyed charm. "If you mean to shower anyway, let's make sure you need one."

I glare. "If you think I'm going to risk getting sand stuck there--"

He talks me into it. Typical.

#

Zhune watches the car from the window. "I know him," he says, and that's the end of it, cancel red alert. Scruffy guy with long hair. I know another Calabite when I see one.

The man has a nasty smile for me, but he rolls right over for Zhune, shows the Djinn his metaphorical throat. I'm used to this by now, still annoyed. No one finds me intimidating.

He pushes me too far. Zhune puts a dent in the wall with the guy before I can even respond. I could take care of myself, if my partner would let me.

#

One room in the house has no windows. That's the one with the scratchings on the wall, graffiti carved with thumbnails in the soft wood. The room stinks of blood, sweat, too much air freshener. Down around the floorboards, I can make out where something's been bolted down.

"It's not a bad place to stow someone during a kidnapping," Zhune tells me. "The house is too far from anywhere to worry about people hearing what they shouldn't."

I don't show him the note I found wedged between the floorboards. It's too embarrassing to admit that it bothers me.

#

"Hold still," Zhune tells me.

"I'm getting sand in places I really don't want sand," I say, because I'd rather complain about that than admit I'm no good at holding still. He already knows.

When he runs his fingers lightly over the bite on my shoulder, the bite he put there himself, I can't do a damn thing about it. Can't even keep quiet, and I hate that there's someone in the house listening.

"You worry too much about what people think," he tells me afterward. "Stop caring. You'll be happier."

"You're a bastard," I say. He doesn't deny it.

#

"Must be something," says the Calabite, while I'm ignoring him. "I mean, if he can make you scream like that." He keeps picking at the arm beside him, flecks of foam scattering around his side of the couch. "I could hear you from in here."

Satisfying is punching him in the face. More satisfying is tripping him by breaking the floor around him, even as we're fighting. Can't resonate him safely, but everything else is fair game.

Zhune pulls us apart. I'm coughing up blood. Worth it. There's a new dent in the wall beside the first one.

#

Zhune has me pinned so that I can't ignore him. We're not on the sand, so I won't complain. "It amazes me," he says, "that someone who can deal with humans so well can't get along with demons for five minutes."

"I like humans." I stare up at the water-marked ceiling. "Around them, I'm the one in charge, whether they realize it or not. I can handle humans."

Zhune frowns at me. "You only like them because you can beat them up."

"Isn't that why you like me?"

Sometimes, I like his laugh. "Not entirely."

#

"I should take you on a real vacation." He considers me thoughtfully, from the passenger seat. "Hawaii, or the like."

"What, so that I can be annoyed by beaches at greater length?"

"Somewhere that no one else will bother us," he says. "You stress out too easily. Maybe you'd learn to relax."

"Maybe I'd go nuts from the boredom."

"Might be entertaining." Zhune smiles at me. "Or I could chain you to a bed for three days and have a real partner's holiday together."

"Pity you don't have handcuffs that would stand up to me. Or a bed."

"Yes. Pity."


End file.
